Some Changes Around Here

We have a big problem around here. It is called "bedtime". Every night, Kinsley goes to bed in her crib. Lochlyn goes to bed in her room. And Chris and I go to bed in our room.

Every night, Kinsley wakes to nurse. Often. She is too old for this behaviour, and I want her to wean. I have been a little soft about it (ok, a lot soft), but the time is drawing very, very close. What invariably happens is that I go to her, climb into the bed in her room with her, and stay there for the rest of the night, and she pretty much nurses at will. Then, Lochlyn will wake and go to our room. She sees Chris in bed, and will climb in with him until morning. This all has to stop!

We decided to try sleeping the kids together, in the double bed in Kinsley's room. Perhaps we are naive, but we hope that when one of them wakes in the night, she will see that she is not alone, and go back to sleep. We started this the week before we went away.

We were starting to have some success! By the end of the week, Kinsley was waking, but going back to sleep on her own except for one nursing session a night. Lochlyn did not get out of bed a single night the whole week! It seems like this might actually work. The plan to wean Kinsley while on holidays totally fell through when she got sick, and we have to start over again getting her to go back to sleep without nursing.

I went to the library to get the book The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley to help the sleep situation. I have read through it before, and she has some great ideas. It wasn't in, but her book The No-Cry Discipline Solution was. Hmmm....

It turns out that we are a family of yellers. I don't like this, and neither does anyone else. I hate that more often than not, when one (or both) of the girls are misbehaving, the situation all too often (quickly) dissolves into one or all of us yelling at each other. I don't remember my parents yelling this much, and I am not sure about Chris's house. And, what is truly frustrating is that IT DOESN'T WORK anyway!

I love my girls. I do not think that Lochlyn or Kinsley misbehave any more than other kids their age. Truly, they are good kids, but they sure know how to push our buttons. As any other parent will agree, it is maddening and frustrating to repeat the same things over and over again. We have tried counting to three. We have tried timeouts. We have tried swats on the bottom. None of that works either.

So, in the book, there was an idea that I thought might work well for Lochlyn. We made up 6 House Rules together, and posted them on a sign. Then we drew 8 Happy Face cards, with Sad Faces on the back. Every time one of the girls (but mostly Lochlyn) breaks a rule, we turn over a Happy Face to show a Sad Face. She does not like this, she wants all the faces to stay happy. At the end of the day, she gets one mini-marshmallow for all the Happy Faces that are left showing, and we turn them all over for a fresh start the next morning. This too seems to be working!

If I find any more great ideas in the book, I will let you know!